Black hole effective theory for strongly interacting matter

We establish a new tool for studying strongly coupled matter: an effective theory of black holes in gravity, which maps to a hydrodynamic description of field theories via the gauge-gravity duality. Our approach is inspired by previously known effective theories found in the limit of a high number of dimensions. We argue that the new approach can accurately describe phase transitions in a wide class of theories, such as the YangMills and other nearly critical field theories. As an application to a previously unsolved problem, we analyze the interface between confining and deconfining phases in holographic Yang-Mills theory.